DLF Donation: Venturing Crew 56

In July of 2006, The Dana Laird Memorial Fund provided scholarships to 3 girls from the Cambridgeport based Venturing Crew 56 to participate in a 2 week backpacking and leadership development trek at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron New Mexico. In all, Venturing Crew 56/Boy Scout Troop 56 sent 8 youth to Philmont.

Scholarship recipient Ryan Prothro wrote the following story of her experience in Philmont, which first appeared in the Scouting Times.

Philmont, New Mexico! It's a place I'm not soon going to forget! I got back about a week ago and my whole life has changed, most definitely for the better! Philmont Scout Ranch is a place where Boy Scouts have been going for decades to learn and grow from the whole experience of surviving together in the wilderness. Now that girls can join the Boy Scouts as Venturers the Philmont trek is available to girls, as well!

Philmont Scout Ranch is more than 300,000 acres of wilderness camping sites, ranching and farming areas, hiking and horse trails, mountains and brooks, cabins and campsites, all donated to the Boy Scouts of America in the 1930's by an Oklahoma oilman named Waite Phillips.

He named the ranch Philmont by combining part of his last name with the Spanish word, Monte, for mountain - so, Phil's Mountain! Each week of the summer, 1,500 Scouts arrive at Base Camp for orientation and are sent into the mountains, in different directions depending on their itinerary, to begin their Crew's carefully planned backpacking adventures.

Would we see mountain lions? Were our backpacks too heavy? Would we hang the bear packs high enough to keep the bears away? Would the heat and hiking along mountain peaks between 9,000 and 12,000 feet be too dangerous? Did we bring the right supplies? Did we bring enough water? Could we reach our mileage goals each day? Would our Crew get along? Could we stand to live on dehydrated food for two weeks? I asked myself all these questions during the first few days of the trek. It was surreal for the first couple days just trying to absorb the whole routine of things. I couldn't believe that I was finally at Philmont after two years of anticipation.

I initially heard about the Philmont trek from the boys in my Crew. They had just returned in the summer of 2004 and the instant I heard of all the fun they had, I knew that on the next trip I wanted to participate.

But the fun came with a lot of work and learning. Our Crew of five girls, three boys, and four adults left Cambridge on July 3 at 4:45AM and headed for Logan Airport with all our gear. This gear would be carried on our backs almost the whole time we were gone.

We were told the whole year of our training that Philmont teaches participants how to pull their own weight and work together. But it is not that easy to do. It really hit home one day where I was not happy carrying some troop gear, thinking it was more than my fair share. But by the time I fell asleep that night, I realized that my Crew Chief hadn’t been unfair by giving me more to carry.

I realized that the hike was not about me or any other individual. It was about the Crew and getting to where we needed be at the time we needed to be there. It was about doing whatever it took to reach our goals together by contributing individually.

Philmont is one of those experiences that changes people forever and I assure you that it did more than make me a better Scout. It made me realize some harsh realities about the world and life in general. It made me realize how sheltered I was from some of the things that a 14-year-old girl of my race (black) should know about and be conscious of.

I remember the seventh night on the trail, when we'd just hiked a five mile hike. It wasn’t our longest day, but we were ALL so tired that when we got to our campsite we just sat, waiting for the energy to build up so that we had the strength to hang the bear bags and start dinner.

One of our troop leaders who is an M.D. and also black and female, saw this in a different light. She saw that we had gotten to a campsite, dropped our gear and all the food and smellables and dispersed at Clear Creek, leaving a heap of bear bait on the ground for hours! For our leader, this was the final straw of similar behaviors earlier in the hike that had some white Scoutmasters from other Crews whispering behind our Crew’s back how sloppy we were, with the message being, "they can’t do it."

Our leader started questioning us.

"What do you notice?"she asked.

We were all silent.

"We're coed?"

I remember someone saying, "What else?"

The second time there was more anger behind it. I couldn't think of anything and neither could anyone else.

"Our group has black people in it!"

She told us what other people had said to one of the white adults in our crew and how our behavior affects how others view us. I almost immediately burst into tears. I felt horrible because of what people where saying about us and because I didn't help the group to do what we were supposed to be doing. This was when our we became more than just a group of good friends; we became a family. I learned more about the reality of racism in one day than I ever thought possible.

The whole Philmont experience taught me not only about myself, but about others around me. I learned to help my fellow Scouts when they needed it in the way I knew would be most effective.

One of the Scouts I went to Philmont with really became a sister to me. I learned to feel her pain and she mine. On one of the most strenuous hikes (with wonderful views at 11,000 feet!) both of us got elevation sickness at the exact same moment. We shared a tent the whole time.

The whole crew shared so many good laughs and sang so many wonderful songs that I completely forgot that two of the Scouts in our Crew had joined us only two and a half months before! We became like siblings on the trip. I swear it! The bonds we built are ones that I promise I'll never forget. All of it was thanks to our trip to Philmont and to our leaders who not only accompanied us, but also trained us for the past year.

My crew spent two weeks together on a planned hike of about 64 miles. We came back having hiked 74 miles. The longest was our last day back to Base Camp, coming over the 9,003-ft. Tooth of Time. At the end, we didn't see a mountain lion and the bears stayed away, but we reached our most important goals. We were tired and out backpacks did get heavy, but we had no serious injuries. We could have used more water on the last day, but we had the right supplies from our year of training.

When I got back to Base Camp, I called me mom to make sure she'd bring Chinese food to the airport. When we flew home, all the families were waiting at Logan with signs and cheering loudly as we came out into the terminal. I got in the car and my mom did bring my Chinese food.

I am more than proud to say, "I did it! I completed a Philmont trek!"

Venturing Crew 56 and Boy Scout Troop 56 are part of the Boston Minuteman Council, the first council in the national to write sexual orientation into its non-discrimination policy.